Don't Give Up On Me
by Honestcannibal
Summary: Sherlock has a problem; John sees it clear as day yet Sherlock refuses to admit it. John's not uncommon with alcohol addiction, he knows what it does and he knows he hates it, so he's determined to help Sherlock from his alcoholism before it's too late. WIP, mature to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

**For my mother. **

* * *

Week 4. Was it four weeks since? Yes, yes it was four weeks. John had noticed a problem in the beginning, the late comings home, the glazed eyes and cheery behavior; he wasn't immune to the symptoms which were so bloody obvious that they smacked him in the face every night.

And here he was, lying in bed just waiting for the front door to open, the footsteps to stumble up the stairs and for Sherlock to finally be safe at home, in bed.

John wanted to smack him.

Alcoholism was John's entire teenage years, his father was a drinker, his sister then turned into a crazed alcoholic when their father died due to blood poisoning (you can guess what from.) and now his best friend had turned to the bottle. Why? John didn't know, in the back of his mind he didn't _want _to know what could force such a brilliant man down to the liquor, but his brain was racing with questions.

Being specifically worried was an awful feeling because John knew Sherlock was fine, maybe not emotionally, but right now he knew there was an extremely high chance that Sherlock would come back tonight.

He felt bad, he knew what had set it off - that bloody row they'd had. John just couldn't keep his mouth shut, he'd shouted at Sherlock, who in return used sarcasm because he _knew_ it pissed John off to the point where he wanted to chin the fucker. It wasn't supposed to be a big argument, which is evidently easier said than done when you're with the irritated machine 24/7. John had literally just got his buttons pushed when he had come home from work.

Sherlock had said something about Sarah and John blew everything out of proportion, soon making Sherlock stand from his seat and storm out in the sulk. John wanted to go after him - he knew the 'problem' that the other had and didn't want to make things worse, but typically, John's blood was too boiled for him to have cared in that precise moment of time.

Sitting up in bed, he decided no sleep was due for tonight because of the sinister pit of worry gnawing away at his insides. This was his fault, he was allowed to feel guilty, regretful, sympathetic and like an arsehole. Honestly, John couldn't think of anything to say when - if - the detective came home. Everything had changed when the drinking started.

It used to be a few glasses of scotch here and there, maybe a bit of wine too, if not brandy as well, then there was all three in one night and finally, then saw the problem unfold in front of his eyes when Sherlock refused to hand over a bottle of Jack Daniel's one evening.

_"Can oneself not enjoy one at- no, no wait I said that wrong." Sherlock had pinched the bridge of his nose, his words slurring ever so slightly near the end, "John, get me a dictionary." _

_"Give me the bottle, Sherlock." John had warned the fifth and, hopefully, final time._

_"Fight me for it." Sherlock's lips quirked into a smile at John, who didn't even think about smiling back._

_"All right." John sighed heavily, "All right fine. You have a serious problem."_

_Sherlock paused, starting at John with his glazed blue eyes before he sneered, "you're the one with the problem, _sir._" _

_"Oh, am I? I'm not the pisshead."_

John admitted to himself straight after that that had been uncalled for and obviously caused more problems than necessary. Sherlock had looked more than surprised at the insult and snorted,

_"You're not accustomed to fun, how could you possibly understand." And he placed the half empty bottle on the coffee table, "there."_

_"Fun isn't stumbling over your own feet and slurring your words." John muttered snatching the bottle from the table._

_"Touchy." Sherlock had chuckled and ran a hand through his hair, "do you think Molly would mind if I experimented on her cat?"_

_John shook his head, he would have laughed if Sherlock wasn't absolutely pissed._

After that, things got particularly worse. The alcohol was cleared out of the flat when Sherlock was sleeping through a severe hangover. But that didn't help anything, John still found bottles of brandy scattered around the detective's bedroom.

He was pretty much lost of all hope. This problem wasn't going to go away unless Sherlock saw that it was a problem, this is exactly how John dealt with Harry three years ago, before she decided to go against John's advice and drink away her problems anyway.

All he could do was wait. Wait until Sherlock realised the severity of this alcoholism, just like Harry. Sherlock may be a super-genius, a brilliant man - a bloody mastermind, but he was still a human being with an alcohol problem.

Then a thought crossed his mind.

_Mycroft. _

Yes, Mycroft might be able to help. He thought deeply for a few moments.

John's problem was trying to find out what was causing the other man to drown his sorrows.

* * *

Sitting downstairs in his chair, John tapped his foot impatiently on the floor. _2am, where is he?_ John had decided that if Sherlock wasn't going to accept help from him, he would threaten to get Mycroft involved.

The door to the flat shut downstairs and John snapped from his thoughts, and listened out for the familiar footsteps on the stairs. Shortly after, Sherlock was in the living room with John, stripping off his coat and scarf.

John turned to him and his mouth almost dropped, "What the fuck happened to you!?" He exclaimed gawping at the blood spilling down the right side of Sherlock's face.

Sherlock regarded him, put his fingers to his head and looked down at the blood over the digits. He seemed to register the blood slowly as he blinked a few times and inspected the blood closer, "is this mine?"

John shot up from his seat and sat Sherlock down on the sofa, ignoring the smell of alcohol present on his clothes. He parted the curly hair on his forehead and saw a deep gash along his pale skin. It was a sickening red colour with a few tiny pieces of, was that glass?

"John," Sherlock's voice was strained,

"Yes Sherlock." John replied inspecting the wound closer.

"John I'm going to be sick." Sherlock said and suddenly moved away from John, vomiting over the floor.

John sighed and patted Sherlock's back gently, there was no point trying to maneuver him to the bathroom, he was already spilling his stomach out on the floor. "This can't keep happening." John spoke quietly as Sherlock began to relax under his soothing touch, "you have a problem."

"No, I don't." Sherlock rasped and wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his blazer. John grimaced,

"I'm going to get that checked out," John pointed at the wound, "then you're going to take a shower, go to bed and we'll talk in the morning."

"Will you stop treating me like a child." Sherlock glared at him,

"Then stop acting like one." John sighed, "we have this argument every time you stumble in, for God's sake." John stood from the sofa and went to get his med-kit.

"I can walk perfectly fine, thank you."

John stopped and turned back around, "oh really?"

Sherlock gave him a deathly glare and stood up, strolling up to John with ease.

"It's probably because you've gotten used to walking while drunk." John argued. Sherlock scoffed and sat at the kitchen table, slouching in his chair.

John let his tense shoulders drop as he reached for the medical pack in the kitchen cupboard, the cut didn't look like it needed stitches but John needed to get the glass out before it got infected.

"You never answered my question," John remarked pulling a chair to sit opposite Sherlock.

Sherlock looked up at him questionably and John rolled his eyes, sitting down. "What happened?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock drawled.

"I wanted to know if you had suffered any long term damage, like memory lo-"

"I know I haven't."

John said nothing more, wiping the blood from Sherlock's face. He looked down at the collar of Sherlock's shirt and noticed that it was pretty much soaked in blood. He looked back up at the wound but his eyes met Sherlock's instead. Something foreign passed over the other's eyes but John refused to let that distract him.

He was angry with Sherlock, he had almost had enough. When the other man was drunk, he was either ridiculously cheery or frustratingly stubborn and angry; it was like a whole other person.

John hated alcohol, always has and always will.

* * *

**So, Canny, you're back to college and you haven't updated your previous fanfictions in over two weeks and you're shitting out a new WIP? Wow, slow down. **

**/Sigh. Anyway, What do you guys think? I pondered the idea of Alcoholic Sherlock for a while and thought, bugger it, I've only seen oneshots of this type of thing, and even then it either resulted in sex or sleep so I wanted to do something new. **


	2. Chapter 2

Lestrade had called John because Sherlock wasn't answering his phone. _Typical_, John thought and thumped on Sherlock's door, "Sherlock!" He called, "Lestrade says there's been a robbery."

When there was no answer, John rolled his eyes and barged in, "get up." He demanded looking down at the body tangled in the sheets. Sherlock groaned loudly and turned over, pulling the pillow over his head.

John pursed his lips and stormed over to the bed, ripping the sheets off of Sherlock's body, "Lestrade wants you for a robbery and we need to have a talk."

Sherlock finally removed the pillow from his head and glared up at John, "a talk about what?" He spat.

"You bloody know what." John dropped the sheets back over Sherlock's body, "now get up."

And he left the bedroom. Whether or not Sherlock was actually going to get up was beyond him, if he didn't, John would drag him out of bed.

Soon enough, Sherlock sauntered into the kitchen, squinting at the sudden burst of daylight.

"Sit." John ordered pointing to the chair at the table. Sherlock did as he was told with mild confusion on his face. John was silent for a few moments, wondering how he should say what he's about to say.

"Why do you drink?"

Sherlock looked taken aback, "what do you mean, it's a natu-"

"You know what I mean." John rose his voice in agitation, "the alcohol, Sherlock, it needs to stop."

"I'm sorry; I didn't know you were in control of _my _body." Sherlock muttered looking away from John.

"Either you stop or I get Mycroft involved."

As soon as the words left John's mouth, Sherlock looked to him, a look of shock slapped across his face. _Now I'm getting to him,_ John thought.

"You cannot be serious." Sherlock scoffed after a moment of silence. John took his phone out of his pocket and waved it around,

"Speed dial one."

"So, you're threatening me with my own brother because you can't-"

"Control you?" John interrupted and Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him. "I'm not trying to control you, Sherlock, I'm trying to help you."

"Oh not this again." Sherlock muttered bringing a hand to his forehead, hissing when his finger ran over the cut from last night.

"Yes, 'this again'. Until you realise that you have a serious problem, I won't-"

"I do not have an alcohol problem!" Sherlock shouted, slamming his palm onto the kitchen table. John jumped at the action but quickly recovered, staring Sherlock down from across the kitchen.

"Yes. You do."

Sherlock stared at him, the silence heavy in the room. It was tense because John didn't know what Sherlock was going to say and he didn't know what Sherlock was going to _do_. Was he really going to call Mycroft if he couldn't get through to Sherlock?

Then finally, Sherlock spoke. "I take pleasure from the effects of alcohol, I enjoy them. I do not have a problem."

John took in a long breath, regarding the anger polluting him but ignoring it; getting angry won't help. "You have been coming home drunk for the past two weeks, Sherlock."

Sherlock sighed loudly, "why are you so fixated on this? I understand that your sister has an addiction but why must you assume I do because I enjoy drinking alcohol?"

_No, don't punch him. Don't punch him. Don't. Punch. Him. _"It's not-" John started angrily but swallowed down the boiling rage, "it hasn't got anything to do with Harry, this is about you and that." John pointed to the empty bottle of Jack Daniel's on the kitchen side.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and began to reply but John's ringtone sounded out from his pocket. He whipped it out, needing _something _to distract him from this. As much as he wanted to help Sherlock, it hurt so much. It just, it broke him because he had dealt with this so many times before. Anger wasn't the main emotion here - that was probably just a cover up from the sympathy he was feeling, he knew Sherlock would be hard to convince but he didn't know it would strike him this hard.

"Lestrade," John answered after reading the caller ID about fifty times.

"_Where are you two, I've had reporters nagging me about this robbery for the past hour and I've got nothing to give them." _

John glanced at Sherlock then back at the floor, "right, yeah. Um, I don't think we can make it."

"_What? Why the hell not?" _Lestrade sounded outraged, something John's never heard before.

"Sherlock's not feeling too good." John lied. He saw Sherlock gawp at him from the kitchen table and stand up, rushing over to snatch the phone from John's hand.

"Give me that," Sherlock hissed, John turned away from Sherlock, trying to keep the phone in his grasp enough to explain the situation to Lestrade.

"_What's wrong with him, inhaled some sort of chemical again?" _

"Yeah, you could say that." John sighed when Sherlock finally snatched the phone from him, glaring daggers at John as he spoke into the receiver.

"I'm fine Lestrade, I'll be there in half an hour." And he hung up, pushing the phone back to John harshly.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sherlock snarled at John, who in return raised his eyebrows at the sudden turn of anger.

"Maybe it's the stress."

"What?" Sherlock snapped.

"The drinking."

"For God's sake," Sherlock turned away from John, walking towards his coat. John said nothing more, deciding against carrying this on further. It would only annoy Sherlock and make him even harder to deal with at the crime-scene.

* * *

Lestrade eyed the two of them as they approached the scene, John could feel his eyes roaming over him, asking silent questions. John couldn't blame him, after John had made it sort of a big deal about Sherlock coming today.

"Thought robberies weren't your division." John said with the hint of a smile,

"They're not," Lestrade ushered for them to follow him, "everyone else is busy apparently."

Sherlock had been quiet for the taxi ride there and was still keeping to himself. Every now and again John would glance at him, making sure he's even still there. Lestrade must have noticed the silence because he paused and turned around, scanning Sherlock momentarily, "what happened to your head?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "I tripped, can we carry on with the-"

"You tripped?" Lestrade stared at Sherlock with a serious expression before bursting out into laughter, "you're the most co-ordinated man I know and you _tripped_?"

John smiled along awkwardly, glancing up at Sherlock and seeing one of the most darkest expressions John had ever seen cross his face.

"Yes, I tripped, can we move on?"

"Yeah, just don't buckle into another crime-scene." Lestrade snickered walking onwards.

Sherlock didn't even flicker a glance at John.


End file.
